


Good in Goodbye

by Sanctuaria



Series: Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [13]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daisysous, Endgame Daisysous, F/M, Help, Lemons, Unrequited Love, We Respect Deke in this House Even if AoS Doesn’t, basically me working out my Daisysous qualms through fic, because same, but we’ll get there, death of Dekesy, episode 7x09, if you are struggling to get onboard the ship despite wanting to then this is the fic for you, season 7, uh the Daisysous actually came out super soft in this???, yes the Daisysous happens in ch3 - discussion of the loop and they kiss and everything don’t @ me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25524607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctuaria/pseuds/Sanctuaria
Summary: “We kissed. Or, I kissed him. During the time loop. And I…” She swallows. “I want to pursue it. Pursue him.”“You and Sousa,” Deke repeats, as if it doesn’t quite compute. She can see in his eyes the moment it hits him, though, a flash of pain he quickly tries to hide, ducking his head to stare at the floor.“I wanted you to hear it from me, first,” Daisy says again, softer than the first time.
Relationships: Deke Shaw/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons (referenced), Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa, Unrequited - Relationship
Series: Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764745
Comments: 101
Kudos: 163





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So Daisysous happened. 
> 
> If you’ve read any of my other fics, you’ll know I was rooting for a solo, empowered Daisy in the end (or perhaps her and Deke getting a happy ending) but here we are. This is my attempt to make peace with it, because at the end of the day, if Daisy’s happy, then I am happy for her, because god knows she deserves any happiness she can get at this point. 
> 
> If you also are struggling to accept Daisysous, then this is the fic for you. If you are already 100% on board, you’ll probably like it anyway lol. Just excuse my sad!Deke focus ;)
> 
> Title from “Good in Goodbye” by Carrie Underwood.

She moves through the Zephyr in a bit of a daze, reminding herself every few steps that the time loop is broken, that she’s not going to wake up in the healing pod in a few seconds with everything reset. It’s strange that the deaths of her teammates became so commonplace to her so quickly, but if she’d allowed herself to really dwell on them at the time, she would have just broken down right there and then. Most of it is hazy at this point, a few memories of bloodied faces that will surely haunt her in her dreams for the next two decades but no more than anything else she’s experienced in her seven years at S.H.I.E.L.D.

Then there is what she’d seen from Simmons the loop they’d finally managed to remove her memory inhibitor. The sight of her newly stoic best friend brought to tears by something none of the rest of them know about, something none of the rest of them _can_ know about. Something that probably has to do with Fitz, whose absence is keenly felt on the Zephyr with every mission despite how much Simmons tries to pretend her missing other half in the lab doesn’t exist…

And then there is Sousa.

Sousa is…something else.

_“I know people like you. Some of my favorite people are people like you. Focused on the greater good, even at your own expense. You want people to think you like being alone, even though you alway send up back with friends. You hate losing, and you'll keep running at the problem full-tilt until you either solve it or slam headlong into a brick wall. When people like you run into those walls, you should have someone there to pick you back up.”_

_“And you…you’d like to…be that someone?”_

She has her answer, and he doesn’t even remember it. She kissed him, and he doesn’t remember that either.

It would be so easy to leave it that way. A kiss doesn’t have to mean anything, especially if one party doesn’t even recall it happened. Not rock the boat. Not open herself up to…

Not _put him in danger_ , like all the others.

But she wants it. She wants _him_ , after so long of wanting no one, wondering if after Lincoln she was even capable of it at all, or if it had all died with him high above the Earth.

“Hey,” a voice says from behind her, jerking her from her thoughts. She turns to see Deke standing there in the equipment room doorway, gray-blue eyes wide and innocent. “Nana says the time drive is working again as far as she can tell with her implant still in,” he informs her. Daisy just nods, her mind for the first time in god-knows how many hours not focused on the time drive.

Deke.

Before she does anything, she needs to tell him. She doesn’t know if he still has a crush on her after all this time—a year with no contact in space searching for Fitz, even, plus another stuck in the 1980s—but she has a sinking feeling in her stomach that he does, if only because of the ornamental lemon plant stuffed into the Zephyr’s already too-small bathroom and the occasional one of the fruits that still pops up on her bed, though she doesn’t know where he’s getting them at this point. In all this time, she’s never really told him to stop, never had a real conversation with him about it, even suspecting—knowing—how he feels.

That’s on her.

“You…you okay?” Deke asks, stepping closer with a concerned look on his face.

“Yeah,” Daisy says. “Yeah, but…we need to talk.”

“Okay,” he agrees, a bit confused but still looking at her with that puppy-dog look. She hadn’t been ready to deal with it, with his feelings, but she never intended to hurt him.

“I thought I should tell you…” Daisy begins haltingly, because how the hell does one break something like this to someone she does, in actuality, care about, even if it may not be in the way he wants? “Not that I owe you an explanation,” she adds hastily, “but that…you should be informed, and I wanted you to hear it from me…”

“Daisy…” His face is solemn now, a thin line between his eyes, and maybe a little fearful.

“Me and Sousa,” she says, throwing caution to the wind and just going with it. “We’re…”

Okay, she didn’t think this through. She and Sousa aren’t anything yet. Hell, she’s still referring to him by his last name like he’s just another agent. Can she call him ‘Daniel’ now? Has she heard him refer to her as anything other than ‘Agent Johnson’?

“We kissed. Or, I kissed him. During the time loop. And I…” She swallows. “I want to pursue it. Pursue him.”

“You and Sousa,” Deke repeats, as if it doesn’t quite compute. She can see in his eyes the moment it hits him, though, a flash of pain he quickly tries to hide, ducking his head to stare at the floor.

“I wanted you to hear it from me, first,” Daisy says again, softer than the first time. “‘Cause I know you…”

“What?” he says, hands clenched at his sides. “What do you know?” He looks up at her, the pain in his eyes drowned out by a new wave of anger. “I don’t get it, Daisy. You’ve known him for all of four days. And yeah, he saved you from torture once but I—but _any of us_ —would have done that given the chance. You know nothing about him! And I’ve been here the whole time.”

“I know he cares about me,” Daisy shoots back, his anger momentarily smothering her guilt and instead spurring her own. “I know he’s a good person, and a fucking _hero of S.H.I.E.L.D._ ”

“Oh, so that’s the bar now? Hero of S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“I know he understands me, and that he supports me,” Daisy continues.

“He’s _older_ than you!” Deke sputters.

“Yeah, why does that matter?” Daisy demands. “Also, so are you?”

“Only by a year,” he scoffs. “He’s _forty_.”

“And has the emotional maturity to show for it, unlike you,” she spits back, crossing her arms. 

“He’s from 1955! What life experiences do you even _share_?”

“Fighting time-stream-jumping robots, dedicating our lives to S.H.I.E.L.D....”

“What about Lincoln?” Deke asks in a crushed voice. Daisy almost yells at him that he has no right to even bring him up until she remembers the first conversation they had about him, back in the Lighthouse with the first batch of lemons on her bunk.

She should have told him a long time ago… She should have tried harder to figure it out, to figure out it was never going to be Deke. Let him down gentler, sooner, instead of dragging him along for the ride as she pointedly ignored even the possibility after Lincoln…

“I…”

“I waited,” he says quietly. “I waited for _years_. I respected your wishes; I didn’t push. But I thought…I thought you would tell me when…”

“Do I really need to explain attraction and love to you?” Daisy asks, throwing out her hand. As soon as the words are out of her mouth a twinge of regret surfaces; she gets harsh when she’s feeling defensive, she _knows_ this, but she said it anyway. “That’s not how it _works_ ; you don’t get to choose!”

He glares at her, crossing his arms. “Yeah, I didn’t either. Unfortunately.”

“…I’m sorry,” she says, and means it. “I didn’t realize myself, really, until it happened. And if I’m honest I’ve just…never been interested in you like that.” He’s not looking at her anymore, arms crossed so tightly that they look like they’ll never come apart, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “But Deke…you’re still my friend, still a member of this team. I just hope that can stay the same, regardless of what happens between me and Sousa.”

“I just…” Deke murmurs, gazing down at the floor. “I guess I’m just realizing I’ve never been in love with anyone before you.” He pushes past her, heading for the door, nearly bumping into Simmons in his haste to leave. Daisy sighs, pulling a hand through her hair. That was not how she wanted that to go.

“How long were you standing there?” she asks Simmons.

“Long enough,” the biochemist tells her with a tight non-smile. Daisy closes her eyes briefly, then opens them and starts after him with swift strides. “I wouldn’t,” Simmons says, catching her arm. “Let him go cool off. It’s…a lot to process for him.”

“I know,” Daisy says. “ _I know_. I did that wrong.”

“You did the best you could,”Simmons says kindly. She gives her a true smile then, a little mischievous and a lot conspiratorial, looking more like the Simmons of the early days of the Bus than the darker, more controlled version of herself that’s been living with them on the Zephyr. “So, you and Sousa?”

Despite herself, Daisy can’t help but smile back. “…Yeah.”

“He dated Peggy Carter herself; you should be very flattered.”

“Jemma!”

“So?” Simmons prompts when she says nothing else.

“…I don’t really want to talk about it,” Daisy admits. Her eyes are drawn back to the door Deke just exited through. “Not until…”

“Cup of tea then?” Simmons offers, tilting her head toward the common area.

“We’ve known each other for seven years; I know what you and your ‘cup of tea’ means,” Daisy says with a huff, even as she follows her out of the room anyway. “What about you, want to tell me about what possibly could have been so important that Enoch was programmed to kill you rather than let it be revealed?”

Simmons makes a face, hand reaching to rub the back of her neck as they pass by Mission Control. Daisy’s not sure she’s even aware of the movement. “Not really.”

They reach the small kitchenette, Simmons pouring hot water from the kettle into two mugs. “I’m sorry about Enoch,” Daisy says softly, watching her closely.

“He was a good friend,” she nods, dropping in a tea bag short, jerky movements and pressing the cup into Daisy’s hands. “He was family. Probably more than I even know.”

They sit on the tiny couch—more of a single-seater, really—and Daisy can’t say she regrets the forced proximity, as something about the pure familiarity of being close to Jemma is comforting in and of itself, what with everything else going on. It is the Bus all over again, squashed side by side in one of their tiny bunks telling secrets in the dead of night, or else the year in space aboard the Zephyr, consoling each other when everything seemed bleak and hopeless.

“You were crying, Jemma,” Daisy says quietly.

“I was?” Her voice is carefully measured, uninflected.

“Sobbing, almost. Whatever you remembered—it was bad.” She stares into her mug. “You kept saying, ‘What have I done?’ and ‘I’m sorry.’”

“Maybe it’s for the best I don’t remember,” the biochemist says, cup trembling in her fingers.

“It’s not,” Daisy says vehemently. “It’s not. If Fitz—”

“Fitz,” Simmons whispers, her voice breaking.

“He’s not safe, is he?” she asks.

Slowly, Simmons shakes her head. Daisy reaches out and wraps one arm around her friend, and Jemma shifts to rests her head on her shoulder. Daisy lets her own fall on top of hers, soft hair tickling her cheek andbreathing in the familiar scent of her lavender shampoo.

“You’ll get back to him,” Daisy murmurs. “Or he’ll get back to you. When all this is over…” The reassurance hangs in the air between them as they spend the rest of their time sitting in silence as they drink their tea, broken only by Deke walking through the door. He immediately stops short at the sight of them, gaze passing from one to the other, and Daisy can’t help but notice his eyes are slightly red-rimmed. The stab of guilt returns, piercing her gut.

Deke unfreezes almost instantly, turning on his heel and leaving with hurried steps, and Simmons reaches for her hand with her free one, giving it a squeeze. “He just needs time,” she repeats, and Daisy wonders if she’s any more sure of that than she herself is about Fitz.

Whatever Simmons did that she has to be sorry about, she’s sure she didn’t mean to do it.

Just like Daisy never meant to hurt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter hopefully coming Monday, giving us Deke's POV as he processes things and comes to terms with it. Then the third and final on Wednesday before the episode airs, with a much better Deke-Daisy conversation and then some actual Daisysous :)
> 
> Any and all feedback appreciated!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deke processes the news, and comes to some realizations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to NattyJane for enlightening me on Sousa's canonical age! I knew he was supposed to be younger but did not do the research on how much. For the purposes of this fic, I'm going to keep him as 40 here just in recognition of the still-prevalent issue in Hollywood of putting female actors with significantly older male actors to depict relationships but yeah. I totally understand that it is a bit of special case in this show and it will not affect the eventual Daisysous going forward, just a pet peeve of mine ;)
> 
> Now, onto Deke's side of the story...

Daisy and Sousa.

Daisy Johnson and the forty-year-old white guy from 1955.

Daisy Johnson, superhero computer hacker, and the dude who asked if “this Siri woman” needed to be freed from imprisonment in his borrowed cell phone.

_Daisy_.

The door to his bunk slams shut behind him. Maybe he’ll bury himself in bed for the next week, or at least until the next world-ending event occurs that this ragtag band of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents has to deal with, in which case, it’ll be about thirty minutes.

Except his bed is a mess. Papers and recording equipment and other Deke Squad paraphernalia are strewn all across it from his abrupt return from 1983, and suddenly, none of it matters anymore. He sends a swath of it flying with an angry sweep of his hand, bottles of Tattletale thankfully bouncing along the bed instead of shattering on the floor and pieces of sheet music going flying through the air. Performing with the band and running drills in the Lighthouse seems so far away now, even less than twenty-four hours later, and he’s never going to see any of them again anyway.

One of the sheets catches his eye, and a hard lump forms in his throat.

_Slow change may pull us apart  
_ _Or if the knife stabs into your heart_

_(Daisy!) Don't you, forget about me_

He rips the paper in half, but there’s another one beneath it.

_Today's another day to find you  
_ _Shying away  
_ _I'll be coming for your love, okay?_

_Take on me (take on me)_  
_Take me on (take on me)  
_ _Daisy I'll be gone_

Deke shreds that one too, then stands there, breaths coming in deep, unsteady gasps. Stupidly, he kind of feels like crying, and he hasn’t cried since his dad got sent to the surface by the Blues so he is _not_ going to cry over this. 

He’s _not_.

Okay, he is, a little, but _real men cry_. His mom taught him that, which she learned from her dad, and maybe he learned it from Mack a little bit too. Not that Mack would be the least bit sympathetic to him right now—he’s never been the biggest fan of Deke’s, well, crush. Come to think of it, none of the team had been, dismissiveness or straight-out poking fun at him at almost every turn… Except from Daisy. She’d generally ignored its existence, yes, but she’d never intentionally made him feel like an idiot for how he felt, or how he acted around her.

Maybe he was just stupid to think he had a chance.

All of a sudden he can’t stand one more second in his bunk, so he wrenches the door open again and leaves the mess behind. He has no destination in mind as he passes the rest of the row of bunks, no destination as he wanders through Medical, through the Equipment Room, through Mission Control. It’s like there’s no air on this ship, and as used to enclosed spaces with a limited number of walkable hallways from his days trapped in the Lighthouse as he is, the lack of places to go is stifling again. Everything here reminds him of her, from the healing pod in the Equipment Room to the framed lemon poster above his workstation in the Lab, because his Nana knows him that well.

The overwhelming urge to talk to someone—anyone—hits him full force, to release some of the crushing sensation he feels in his chest. Though he’s spent most of his life alone, meeting this team in 2091 and for the first time witnessing how willing they were to kill for each other—to _die_ for each other—had made him yearn for something he didn’t even know he wanted. His company, the Deke Squad…no matter how much he tries, he can’t quite replicate what _this team_ has.

But who is he supposed to talk to?

Mack? Yeah, right, he’s still hoping he’ll forget that Deke owes him ten percent of his company by the time they get back to 2019.

Elena? She’s not one for feelings, and they’ve only just become what he would qualify as ‘friendly,’ though he knows better than to speak for her.

Coulson, Daisy’s resident father figure? No thanks.

May, Daisy’s resident mother figure, who could probably murder him with just her pinky finger? Nope, that is the worst idea he’s ever had, and that’s saying something considering the number of times he’s stuck his neck out for these people before he even knew them.

“Deke,” a voice calls out, and Melinda May herself emerges from inside the cockpit, stopping in front of him.

“ _May_ ,” he squeaks. “I mean…May.”

She raises an eyebrow at him but seems to take his weirdness in stride. “You looking for Simmons?”

Nana… She should have been his first thought, the one person on the team who has been nice to him the whole time, the last bit of family he has left in the world.

“Yeah,” he says, voice unexpectedly gruff. He clears his throat. “Yeah. You know where she is?”

“She was headed for the kitchen,” May says, angling her head in that direction. He nods his thanks as he shoves his hands in his pockets, walking swiftly away. He’s already planning what he might say to her—he can’t imagine she doesn’t know how he feels, but just saying it out loud… They might even get to hug, and it’s almost sad how much he craves that tiny morsel of affection right now.

Nana’s hugs feel like his mom’s. He knows that from experience.

He walks through the doorway to the kitchen and stops dead at the sight that greets him. Simmons is there, yes, but May failed to mention Daisy was with her. They’re curled up together on the tiny couch, a mug of tea in each of their hands, Simmons’s head resting on Daisy’s shoulder and Daisy’s head on top of hers, eyes half-closed.

So he does the only thing he can do, hurt burning through his chest. He turns on his heel and leaves.

Because of course Daisy is monopolizing his Nana right when he needs her most.

But no, Daisy has his grandmother because _they’re fucking best friends_. They’ve been through betrayal and hardship and robot versions of the team and a messed up virtual world. They’ve been through losing Coulson, and losing Fitz, and space puffies, and whatever the hell else they got up to last year, whereas he’s the quirky wayward grandson she accidentally picked up along the way.

And it’s not just Simmons.

There’s no one on this ship that would choose him over her. Or anywhere on Earth. Not anymore.

_Choose him over her?_ Deke thinks. That’s not fair. That’s not even what he wants, he just wants…he wants to belong in the way that Daisy does, to belong to someone, or belong to a team, or belong in a fucking time period at this point.

They thought he was dead, but he wasn’t, not fully. _“Do we need to be sad about that?”_

And the answer, from _Daisy_ of all people: _“We do not.”_

He tried making it on his own. He did; he tried. He got his company, his band, and each time he’d had to leave them all behind. He’d _chosen_ to leave them all behind, to go with S.H.I.E.L.D. again, to be sucked into this madness…

For Daisy? Maybe. The piercing pain in his chest seems to think so. But was it? Or did he look around at all of these people who would literally die for each other and realize that his standards for feeling like he belongs are way skewed, both by his time with this highly self-sacrificial team and his experiences in the Lighthouse 2091?

And when it all comes down to it, with his Nana, with Daisy, with this team— _why is he never enough?_

He finds himself in the tiny bathroom, maybe because it’s closer than his bunk as a place to scrub the wetness from his eyes. The ornamental lemon plant he’d liberated from his company sits on the counter, mocking him, and with one sudden movement he grabs it by the stem, tucking the pot under his arm. His workstation in the lab is next, ripping the lemon poster from the wall with a loud paper shearing sound and crumpling it in his fist. He dumps both in the trash can then loots his desk, chucking a few more bits of lemon memorabilia and in reality anything even vaguely yellow. Then it’s on to his bunk, pages and pages of—yeah, okay, Mack, _ripped off_ —song lyrics, the bottle of lemon-scented air freshener, the 80s S.H.I.E.L.D. jumper Olga’d made in case Daisy had been one of the ones coming to get them.

Every single mark of his crush or affection or whatever it is he feels for her has to go. He has to obliterate it until there’s nothing left because apparently none of it meant anything anyway. Nothing he’s done for her, nothing he’s done for the team—nearly sacrificing his life to get them home from the future, all the pep talks and reassurances he gave Daisy in the Lighthouse while Coulson was dying, that she wasn’t about to crack the world apart, and then everything in the temple…

He wasn’t doing that just to get in her pants. That would have made all this so much easier. But no, he cared about her, in a way he hasn’t cared about anybody since he was alone and nine years old, and _he’s been here_ , by her side for one and a half years of apocalypses and world-ending events. _He’s been here for her_ , as much as he could, as much as she’s let him. And he let her lead, let her treat him however she wanted, after what she’d told him about Lincoln. He’d waited, and waited… For some sign. For her to be ready, on her terms.

She hadn’t said yes.

But she didn’t say no, either.

Until now, for a guy she’s known for all of four days.

Deke’s been an idiot, and all he can do now is get rid of any signs or reminders of it. The rest of the Zephyr is clear now, he thinks, and when he peeks inside the kitchenette half an hour later that’s empty too, so he yanks out the fruit drawer in the fridge and begins dumping out the lemons, sending them rolling across the floor until he can collect them and chuck them in the wastebasket. His fingers close around the last, wayward one, the uneven, textured rind cold against his skin. He stares at it, the trash can inches away, and for some reason he refuses to examine, slips it into his pocket.

That’s it then. Somehow, even the absence of lemons doesn’t quench the mixture of hurt and anger swirling around in his stomach, not that he really thought it would, deep down.

It’s always been so much more than lemons.

Sighing, he stands again, wondering if he should just go back to his bunk and hide until he’s called up for the next mission or the time drive starts malfunctioning again. Wondering how long til the cat’s out of the food sack for the rest of them as well, how long until they’ll look at him when he walks into a room with looks of pity—or worse, look at him and think Daisy made the right choice.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. hero” is probably Coulson’s preferred candidate for dating his pseudo-daughter too.

Yeah, his bunk. That’s a good idea. The fastest way to the stairs up to them is through Mission Control and the lab again, but this time he hopes his Nana _isn’t_ there, because he’s in no mood to talk to anyone anymore.

And he gets his wish, because Simmons is nowhere to be seen, but perhaps he should have chosen a better wish.

“No, I’m fine,” Daisy says softly, her head tilted slightly up to address Sousa. “The chamber fixed the last of it; I feel close to full strength again.” She smiles, a gentle, open thing that makes Deke’s heart clench, sending another physical stab of pain through him. And the way Sousa looks at her, soft and protective and admiration shining through every inch—because who could look at Daisy Johnson with anything other than admiration? “Thank you, though.”

A lump rises in his throat, choking him.

“Well, still, it can’t have been easy,” Sousa tells her. “If you need anything—”

“Trust me, I know,” Daisy says with another upward quirk of her lips. Her eyes slide sideways to Deke, still standing in the doorway for the second time that day. She’s stepping away from Sousa before she’s even met his eyes, the smile fading from her face. And all of a sudden…

All of a sudden, Deke feels like an idiot, for an entirely different reason.

Of course Daisy cares about him. She’s holding herself back from Sousa for his sake. She came and told him first because she was doing her best not to hurt him.

And he, to put it in lovely 21st century terms, is being a dick. If he really cares about her, he has to let her go and pursue what will make her happy, not drag her down with him because his feelings got hurt. It’s not about whether or not he’s enough; Daisy has been through so much in her life—and yeah, they all have, but that’s not what this is about—and she finally has a chance at happiness and he’s preventing her from taking it?

He _knows_ her history with Ward, with Lincoln, with Miles even because she trusted him enough to tell him. He _knows_ how monumental this is for her, how broken she still is over Lincoln, how much fear she still harbors about even the possibility of letting anyone else in, letting anyone else close to her like that, for their sake as much as hers. He knows how much she struggles with allowing anyone else take care of her, or take the hit so she doesn’t have to. He knows this because _he has been here_ , and who is he to begrudge Sousa that chance?

If he can make her _happy_ …

Well, that’s what Deke’s wanted most of all, really…even if it’s not with him.

“Daisy,” Deke says, the sound of his own voice a jolt even to his own ears. “Can I talk to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Yes, I know there is no way Deke would remember anything that happened in any of the loops but the last one, but I was so angered by the “Deke’s dead?” moment in the show that I needed to throw hands a little here. Please excuse my lapse in science/reality and if needed remember that Simmons once mapped Raina's Inhuman DNA using gel electrophoresis...
> 
> Feedback always appreciated :) Next up, Daisy and Deke get to hash things out in a much more productive way and Daisy finally gets that heart-to-heart with Sousa...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deke lets go, and Daisy has a long-awaited conversation—and maybe a bit more—with Daniel Sousa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. day!!! ...Hard to believe it'll just be done and gone in two weeks :'(
> 
> So I did not really manage to convert myself fully to Daisysous through this fic in the end, but that part ended up just coming out really soft anyway, somehow? I don’t even— Idk, I’ll just let you read it.

She looks between him and Sousa, her teeth biting at the inside of her lip hard enough to taste the iron tang of blood. “Could—”

Daisy doesn’t even have to finish the sentence before Sousa is nodding. “Of course. I’ll go see if anyone else needs help with anything.”

_“I’ll find you after,”_ she almost says but doesn’t because her guilt is still eating her up inside, watching as he gives her another smile before exiting the lab. Daisy turns back to Deke, who approaches her with quick steps. Whatever pain or anger had been in his eyes before, it’s masked now, replaced by something she can’t quite identify. The thought does nothing to quell the swirling of dread and regret in her gut.

“I’m sorry,” Deke says immediately, and it takes her so off-guard that all she can do is stare at him. “I’m sorry I reacted badly the first time. You…you deserve to be happy, Daisy, more than anything.” Deke swallows. “Your happiness—and your friendship—are more important to me than anything else.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Daisy tells him. “I didn’t know—I didn’t know until I _knew_.”

Deke nods. “I know you didn’t. And that you would never do that. ‘Cause you…you care about other people too much for that, and that’s what makes you special, way more than your powers.” He looks away, blinking, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I can’t promise I can just shut off how I feel immediately, but…” He pulls something out of one of his pockets, and Daisy looks down to see a singular lemon sitting in the palm of his hand.

“Deke…”

“This is the final one,” he tells her. “I, uh, got rid of all the others. I don’t know what our friendship looks like without this but…I’m gonna try.”

“It just looks like friendship,” she assures him. “You’ve always been a good friend, and if you need me, I’ll still be there for you. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that different…” Her hand closes around the lemon, the final lemon, taking it from him. “Just…switch to oranges or something?” she offers. Deke smiles and huffs a watery laugh, ducking his head and nodding. He steps closer before she’s even ready for it, his arms closing around her, but she hugs him back without a second thought.

Of course she does.

“Goodbye, Daisy,” Deke tells her when he pulls away. Then he’s striding away just as quickly as he’d arrived, pausing only in the doorway. “I hope it works out. I really am happy for you.”

And then he’s gone, leaving Daisy alone in the lab with a lemon in her hand. She blinks, then feels the breathshe hadn’t known she was holding explode outward from her chest. A heady feeling of relief follows it, like a massive weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

She has to find Sousa. She has to tell him—well, she’s not quite sure yet what she’ll tell him, but she’s sure something right will come up in the moment.

Daisy sets off to find him with a new spring in her step, barely noticing the missing lemon poster from above Deke’s workstation as she exits the lab. Sousa’s not in Mission Control, but she does brush by May on her way past, causing the woman to stop in her tracks with a surprised look on her face.

“You…” May starts, gazing at her curiously. She blinks several times, a small smile spreading across her face, above the confusion. “You… Did something happen with Sousa?”

Damn empath powers.

“Sort of?” Daisy tries.

But May doesn’t ask her to explain, just grips Daisy’s shoulder in what is probably the first voluntary touch she has seen May make on anyone since she got her new abilities, squeezing lightly before moving past her to the cockpit. “He’s in the Equipment Room.”

She always loves May, but sometimes she really loves her former S.O.

Sousa looks up as she enters, holding a tablet and frowning slightly in that way that she absolutely recognizes as the universal ‘doing inventory’ face, but the expression disappears entirely the second he looks at her, blindly setting the tablet aside. “I see Simmons got you set up with some 21st century tech,” she says.

“Yeah…still hard to believe the computing power in something so small, but…” Sousa walks toward her, all concern in his gaze. His eyes glance toward the door as if to see if Deke is following. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, better than okay,” Daisy tells him. 

He nods toward her hand, his head tilting in the cutest—they’ve kissed, goddamn it, she’s allowed to think of him as _cute_ —way. Her throat closes up automatically anyway, leaving her confused and fighting the sudden onset of emotion. Somehow it still feels like a betrayal, and Daisy begins to realize her problems did not start or end with a friendzoned Deke Shaw.

_Lincoln_.

“What’s with the lemon?” Sousa asks.

“It’s…a long story,” Daisy says, struggling to make her voice work.

“Well…I’d like to hear it sometime,” he replies, genuine and unassuming. So _fucking_ genuine and good and she doesn’t deserve him and she’s going to get him killed and _what the hell was she even thinking_ but oh god she wants this after so long—

She thrusts it out toward him, anything to save herself from that train of thought. “This is for you.” God, so she’s relegated to using Deke methods of communicating interest and affection now. What even is her life?

“Thank you,” Sousa says seriously, taking the lemon from her. His gaze is curious, but not overly. Just…accepting.

“You were so right,” Daisy breathes, staring at him as if she’s watching him wake up next to her healing pod, automatically ready and willing to help all over again. “Nothing fazes you.”

“Some things faze me,” he tells her. “You don’t faze me.” Something in her face must be asking the question even though _she already knows_ , because he continues. “I know your type, people like you. Some of my favorite people are people like you. Focused on the greater good, even at your own expense. You want people to think you like being alone, even though you alway send up back with friends, with your team. And the thought of being alone scares you, but the thought of not being alone, and having something to lose, that scares you more.”

His voice is gentle, the words seeping into her very core, different from last time but still so very true.

“Some—some things happened in the time loop,” she begins haltingly. Her eyes flash up to meet his. “Things you won’t remember.”

“Things I’d want to remember?” he asks.

She nods. “At least, I think so. I hope so.”

He leans against the metal table holding up the healing pod, setting the lemon down on the edge of it, perfectly within reach. “Want to tell me about them?”

“We kissed,” Daisy says, all in a rush. Far from feeling ashen in her mouth like she’d feared the words would, finally giving voice to the memory sparks something within her again, that warmth, that _want_ for companionship that she hasn’t felt for anyone else since Lincoln. “Or, I kissed you. And you kissed me back, I think.”

“I’m sure I did,” Sousa assures her, giving her a small smile. “I—”

She surges toward him again, just like that first time, pressing her lips to his and feeling him respond, warm and gentle and undemanding. His hands find her waist, the lightest of pressures inviting her closer. Their first kiss had been hurried, the limitations of the time loop pounding in her ears, but this…

Daisy lets him go, maintaining the close proximity of their bodies as their lips break apart, her hands somehow curled over the front of his blue shirt. “People close to me,” she warns him, because she has to, _she has to_. “They, uh, they tend to die. Or betray S.H.I.E.L.D. and turn into a weird alien HYDRA-god-parasite, but mostly—die.” He gazes at her, warm and steady and unblinking. “There was this guy, Lincoln—Lincoln Campbell. He…he was an Inhuman too, part of our team. We were—close. And he…he died. He died for me.” She closes her eyes, trying to shut out the beeping of a Quinjet adrift in space, a small blip on a screen blinking out of existence. When she opens them, Sousa’s still there. “I just…you have to know the risks.”

“I already died once. I can’t say I was the biggest fan, but it did give me the chance to know you,” he tells her. “Not such a bad deal.”

It hangs in the air a moment and she searches his face for any hint of doubt, of uncertainty. Somehow, miraculously, there isn’t any, and despite herself, Daisy smiles. “What about you?” she asks. “Any skeletons from your past I should know about?”

“Well, my past is currently thirty years _in the past_ , so…” Sousa’s hands on her waist tighten ever so slightly. “There was one, ah, Peggy Carter.”

“Right,” Daisy says, suddenly remembering her conversation with Jemma from earlier. “Simmons might have a heart attack if you tell her. Or, a fangirl attack.” She catches his eye and stops, reaching up one hand to brush it along his jaw. “What happened?”

“It…ended. Abruptly,” he tells her. “It was six years ago. Or, six years before—” Daisy nods. “Steve Rogers came back, and I…couldn’t compete. Not that I blame her; he was the love of her life back from the dead, but…”

“It still hurt,” Daisy murmurs.

“It was a long time ago.”

“It’s okay,” she tells him. “I’m still…not quite over Lincoln either. Not sure I ever will be. We were just finally figuring it out, and…”

“And he was ripped away,” Sousa says quietly, and Daisy knows he understands.

She meets his eyes, the tug of a smile at the corners of her lips. “So, still not fazed?”

“Just interested.”

“Me too,” Daisy breathes, and then she’s kissing him again, soft and sweet and she’s floating higher and higher, for the first time in a long time without fear of falling down.

After all, someone new might just be there to pick her back up now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I did these two justice in the end; please let me know what you thought if you are so inclined! Also down to just scream about Jiaying and Daisy meeting in 7x10 tonight in the comments :D


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